Manchin: Biden ‘Knows’ We’ll Need Fossil Fuels for More than a Decade

On Wednesday’s broadcast of West Virginia MetroNews’ “Talkline with Hoppy Kercheval,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) stated that, despite his declaration in the State of the Union address that we will need fossil fuels for at least the next decade, President Joe Biden “knows” that we will need fossil fuels for “a lot” more than a decade and argued that getting Biden to say what he did during the speech was a positive thing.

Host Hoppy Kercheval said, [relevant exchange begins around 18:50] “President Biden says that we’re going to need fossil fuel for the next ten years.”

Manchin responded, “He knows it’s going to be a lot longer than that. He knows that. Just to get that out of his mouth was something positive, I think, acknowledging, for at least ten years. So — and I’ve got to be careful how they’re trying to enforce the piece of legislation that we worked so hard on, the Inflation Reduction Act, to make sure that the coal communities and the coal opportunities and the coal plants that we have that are producing 24/7 energy in this country, and also, the oil, we need to produce 13-15 million barrels a day.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett